intimate

Etymology

From Latin intimare (“to put or bring into, to impress, to make familiar”), from intimus (“inmost, innermost, most intimate”), superlative of intus (“within”), from in (“in”); see interior.

adj

1. Closely acquainted; familiar.
   an intimate friend
   He and his sister deeply valued their intimate relationship as they didn't have much else to live for.
2. Of or involved in a sexual relationship.
   She enjoyed some intimate time alone with her husband.
   The man, who had been arrested for being intimate with a donkey, admitted the conduct in question but claimed that the donkey had not been a donkey when he met her at a nightclub last Saturday night, but rather a prostitute. 28 October 2011, Kevin Underhill, “Shape-Shifting Donkey Prostitute Strikes Again”, in Lowering the Bar, archived from the original on 2022-12-16
3. Personal; private.
   an intimate setting
4. Pertaining to details that require great familiarity to know.
   Grélard et al.⁸⁷ determined the intimate structure of pseudoviral particles of hepatitis B subvirus using solid-state NMR, light scattering, and cryo-electron microscopy. 2015, Slawomir Pikula, Joanna Bandorowicz-Pikula, Patrick Groves, “NMR of lipids”, in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, volume 44, Cambridge: Royal Society of Chemistry, →ISSN, page 391
5. Very finely mixed.
   Black powder consists of an intimate mixture of potassium nitrate, charcoal, and sulfur.

noun

1. A very close friend.
   Only a couple of intimates had ever read his writing.
2. (in plural intimates) Women's underwear, sleepwear, or lingerie, especially offered for sale in a store.
   You'll find bras and panties in the women's intimates section upstairs.

verb

1. (transitive, intransitive) To suggest or disclose (something) discreetly.
   He intimated that we should leave before the argument escalated.
   The Kaiser beamed. Von Bulow had praised him. Von Bulow had exalted him and humbled himself. The Kaiser could forgive anything after that. "Haven't I always told you," he exclaimed with enthusiasm, "that we complete one another famously? We should stick together, and we will!" … Von Bulow saved himself in time—but, canny diplomat that he was, he nevertheless had made one error: he should have begun by talking about his own shortcomings and Wilhelm's superiority—not by intimating that the Kaiser was a half-wit in need of a guardian. 1936, Dale Carnegie, “Part 4, Chapter 3. TALK ABOUT YOUR OWN MISTAKES FIRST”, in How to Win Friends and Influence People, page 223
2. (transitive, India) To notify.
   I will intimate you when the details are available.